Can't tell your players… wait…

The sometimes fierce, but often comical and petty, rivalry between the Bridgeport Sound Tigers and the Albany River Rats continues today, where the Rats have held up Bridgeport’s game notes because they hadn’t committed to who’s on the roster for today’s game.

It has been going for a while now, but it hasn’t gotten old.

There was the chaos at the end of that game two years ago in Lowell, when Karpa nailed Aucoin, and Aucoin and Kevin Estrada tried to nail everybody else. There was the back-and-forth rivalry last year.

Then there was the meal room. Seriously. The Sound Tigers have varied what they do with their pregame meal quite a bit in the past two years. It used to be just about everyone with a pulse that was allowed in. They cut it back to a ticket-based thing last year, restricting tickets to only on-ice and off-ice officials, media and team staff.

Then they cut it to off-ice officials only. Tom Rowe went in to get a piece of chicken or whatever and got turned away.

Albany returned the favor on Bridgeport’s coaches the next time they were in town. That might even have been the night Fata popped Aucoin at the end of the game. Since then, Bayda has speared Fata in the groin and smacked Bootland upside the head.

No, these teams love each other.

(BTW, Albany did wind up coming in today. Interesting.)

Michael Fornabaio